The Patterns of Antipsychotic Drug Use in Schizophrenic Patients Registered at the Day Rehabilitation Programs of Mental Health Centers / 대한정신약물학회지

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: This study was to explore the use patterns of antipsychotic drugs in schizophrenic patients who registered at the day rehabilitation programs in mental health centers. METHODS: The sociodemographic and clinical data for individual patients registered at the day rehabilitation programs in 16 mental health centers were gathered from the questionnaires reported by patients and mental health center workers, respectively. Schizophrenic patients were divided into the two groups, the conventional antipsychotics group and the atypical antipsychotics group, in order to identify the selection factors for the prescription of antipsychotic drugs among the sociodemographic characteristics and clinical variables. RESULTS: Three hundred forty seven chronic mentally ill patients had been registered at day rehabilitation programs of 16 mental health centers in year 2002. Among them, 301 patients had the diagnosis of schizophrenia with more male patients than female patients as 58.8% vs 41.2%. The patients aged in twenties and thirties were 78.4% and 52.5% of the patients reported the high school as the educational background. Two hundred forty nine (82.7%) patients were unmarried so that their caretakers were mostly parents and their medical health services were covered by national health insurance in 73.7% of the patients. And 288 schizophrenic patients (95.7%) administered antipsychotic drugs as the drug of treatment. One hundred sixty individuals (53.2%) of the schizophrenic patients administered atypical antipsychotic drugs. The patients in the atypical antipsychotics group were younger in average ages, had the shorter duration of illness, visited secondary or tertiary psychiatric facilities more and used anticholinergics or anxiolytics less than those in conventional antipsychotics group. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that two sociodemographic variables of medical health services and psychiatric facilities might influence the prescription of antipsychotic drugs, conventional or atypical. And medical health services were inter-related with age and duration of illness.